Using Model - Pre WWI

About Uncle Sam

James Montgomery Flagg (my Grandfather) created the original Uncle Sam "I Want You". Although most researches will refer to JMF as the model of his original Uncle Sam, nothing could be farther from the truth. My Mother tried her adult life to correct this error, and I will carry on this monumental task.

In 1916, JMF reluctantly accepted a 4th of July project by Leslie Magazine, and eventually found his Uncle Sam one rainy night on a train bound for Parris Island, where he was to unveil a portrait of the Commandant.

His "symbol of our country" was a young, roughly 17 year old, Marine, which he considered the finest branch of our armed forces. He was able to acquire a 24 hour pass for this "boot" not normally allowed off base, and he aged his model's adolescent face by forty years and turned a circus clown's costume into symbolic dignity (as told to me and written by his daughter, my mother, Faith).

This cover was eventually made into a recruiting poster, at the request of the State Dept, and is now recognized as the most famous war poster of our time.

By WWII, JMF had ironically begun to look remarkably like his original Uncle Sam, and he did indeed use his mirror image in several new posters. When FDR is quoted as saying "saving model hire" in a personal letter to JMF, he is referring to the 2nd World War posters.

Faith would say, "I thought you might find the facts more fun than the fantasies."

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Friday, June 1, 2012

Lying has become an art form with Obama. He has been one from the beginning when he promised America, "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor". Last week he told such a whopper, that even the Washington Post gave him 3 Pinocchios. The comparisons he uses with President Reagan are insulting, but be that as it may, Obama's Iowa campaign speech was full of whoppers, the best one being:

"But what my opponent didn't tell you was that federal spending since I took office has risen at the slowest pace of any President in almost 60 years."

Keith Hennessey, economist who served 6+ years as Director of the National Economic Council for President George W. Bush, has responded with a detailed list of the flaws, and writes:

Problem #1: The President argues that his fiscal stimulus law, enacted in February 2009, had a big positive effect on the growth rate of the economy. We are now asked to believe that President Obama’s policies did not significantly increase spending but did significantly increase economic growth. This is, to say the least, an intellectually inconsistent argument. The whole Keynesian fiscal stimulus argument is premised on a significant increase in government spending.

Problem #2: Mr. Nutting assumes that since a President serves a four year term he should be measured for four budget years. But since budget years begin in October and Presidential terms begin in January, the fairest and most accurate way to measure the budget effects of a one-term President is to look at five budget years, not four.